Bad Moods
by Eve Davidson
Summary: Craig and Ellie are both in bad moods and end up arguing about who is more screwed up.
1. Chapter 1

It was the summer before 12th grade and Ellie knew she was hanging out with Craig too much. She was hanging out with him to the exclusion of her other friends like Marco. Marco was her best friend, Craig was just some sick unobtainable love interest who she shouldn't even be interested in.

But she was and most days it filled her with this delusional happiness but not every day. Not today. She was in a bad mood. The house was hot from the moment she woke up. Her mother called her "Eleanor" and there wasn't even any coffee. Not any. In the whole house.

"Bye, mom," she called as she left. She had to buy coffee. A large one. Black, no sugar. The heat annoyed her, the way her leather boots felt against her legs annoyed her. It might be best just to stay home with her bad mood, listen to some angry indie pop and call it a day. But no. She had to see Craig.

Craig wasn't faring much better. Joey lectured him about not helping out enough. Again. Just like he had lectured him about that in ninth grade and it made Craig feel young and angry. And his favorite jeans weren't clean.

"Just wear a different pair," Joey said, and Craig rolled his eyes. Ellie showed up then, knocking at the door, clutching her coffee.

"Hey," she said

They went to the garage, and it was hot and stuffy, the air not moving. Ellie sat on the couch and sipped her coffee that was too hot to drink and she burned her tongue.

"Yeah, my mom forgot to buy coffee, can you believe that?" she said, taking the lid off of the coffee and blowing on it, her breath making little ripples on the smooth black surface.

"Nope," Craig said, and Ellie wrinkled her brow at his odd little tone.

She didn't want to spend the day in this stuffy garage but she didn't want to do anything else, either. She sipped at her coffee, looked at the raw wood of the walls, at the posters of musicians, at the string of Christmas lights.

She felt herself sliding into that mood where she just wanted to verbally attack someone. Wanted to unleash her razor tongue. She felt the sarcasm rising in her blood.

"My mother," she said, and laughed a harsh little laugh, "I guess she's cut down on the drinking but still, she can't even remember coffee? A necessity like that?"

Craig didn't say anything, his look dark. Ellie stared at him for a second.

"What?" she said, and her tone was harsh.

"Nothing," he said, not looking at her, fiddling with the ragged edge of his sleeves. Ellie sat up, set her coffee on the floor beside the couch.

"Don't make me drag it out of you," she said, "what?"

And he looked up at her, his eyes filled with this bitter sadness that it staggered her.

"Okay, well, you still have your mother. You put her down and take her for granted, but she's there. It just pisses me off," he said.

"Jesus, Craig! Your mom was like a saint! My mom's a drunk. She's burned the house down. She made me cut myself. She's made me miserable for years!"

He shrugged, looked away from her. She wanted to shake him, make him see the world of difference between his mom and hers.

"Maybe you're luckier," she said, "you can remember your mom in this perfect little bubble. Not me, boy. I can remember her slapping me across the face after an all day binge. I can remember her totally falling apart when my dad left for that mission,"

"So she drank? She doesn't anymore. So she slapped you? So what? It's nothing compared to what my father did to me," She just stared at him, at his hazel eyes, at his curly hair, the long sleeved shirt. So it was a pissing contest now about who's had it tougher. She'd be damned if she let him win.

"At least you were fucking rich! My dad didn't make squat in the army, and mom? She certainly couldn't hold a job. You know those fancy designer clothes Paige wears? You think I didn't want clothes like that? We couldn't afford anything like that, and even if we could my mom drank it away,"

"You think being rich made up for being beaten all the time? It was _beatings_, Ellie, not just some slap because he was drunk. And my mother was dead,"

She drank more of her coffee, felt the motionless air effecting her brain. Squinted her eyes at Craig.

"I had to go to therapy. To cope with things I used self-mutilation. And I still do it, once in a while, when the going gets tough,"

"Ellie, you choose to do that. You pick up a razor or a knife or whatever and you do it. Me? I'm bipolar. I'm mentally ill. I didn't choose that,"

She licked her lips, felt herself having a sick kind of fun.

"My dad left for that peace keeping mission and my mother fell apart. She just drank herself right into oblivion. I was scared all the time. Scared that she'd die of alcohol poisoning, scared that she'd hurt me, scared that anything would happen. Everything was dark,"

"Yeah? Try paying such close attention to your father's mood because you know that the day is coming when he's going to lose it over something that you did, whether you meant to do the thing or not it'll still be all your fault because you screw up all the time. Try just waiting for him to lose his patience and start beating the shit out of you,"

"Yeah? Gee, Craig, try coming home from school every day and seeing your mother passed out on the couch with the empty bottles of vodka on the coffee table and the rug, try watching her throw up every night. And every time you try to talk to her she gives you this look like she hates you,"

"Okay, Ellie. Try staying up for days and have your thoughts start racing and have all these ideas going through your mind so fast and everything seems possible, but you feel kind of sick, like you're on one of those rides at some carnival that spins you upside down and to the side and after a while all you can do is just hold on. Then pound the shit out of your step father, the one person who stood up for you and stood by you and went above and beyond any expectations, but what do you do? You beat him up like your father had beaten you, and the thing is you were barely even aware of doing it. When you're finally aware of things because you're all doped up on psych drugs you're in the hospital and everyone is telling you you're crazy,"

Ellie bit her lip, finished up her coffee, put her hands up.

"Okay, Craig. You win. You're more fucked up than me. Happy?"


	2. Chapter 2

That glorious summer. Every day dawning hot and the sun burning on the horizon and she'd burst awake with one thought on her brain, 'Craig,'. All she wanted to do was see him. All she wanted to do was hear his voice as it played like a record, scratchy and insolent sometimes, light hearted and high pitched at other times. She was coming to know his tones so well, the joking, the sliding into serious. The almost stutter that she couldn't get enough of, the way he would repeat words sometimes and say, 'uh, um, well,' the little verbal fillers as he thought about what he wanted to say.

She knew she was neglecting Marco, and she felt the passing pangs about that. She'd call him when it was already too late to do anything because she was wasting all her time on Craig, and she knew she was wasting it. She could see the seconds as the little hand on her watch glided by them, turning them into minutes and hours and days, that little second hand eating up all of her summer without even a kiss to show for it. They'd tickle each other sometimes, violent tickle fights and she'd scream through the pain and cling to the feeling of him touching her, even in that playful friend way that he didn't desire to be anything more. But she did. Boy did she.

But sometimes her frustration with him would come out in her mean voice and her narrow eyed stare. Sometimes she'd wonder what it was he saw in Ashley that he didn't see in her. She'd feel her hair laying heavy against her shoulders and back, the sun heavy on her pale red head's skin, and she'd realize that Ashley was together, Ashley had her ducks in a row while she, Ellie, had no such thing. She had a recovering alcoholic mother and she had her weekly group and she had her rubber bands. How could that compare to Ashley?

But every morning the hope burned bright that today could be the day, the day he would see her as something more than his really really good friend. Maybe he'd see her translucent skin and fire red hair, her delicate bone structure and narrow hips, her lips done up in dark shades of crimson for him. Maybe he'd catch the scent of her pheromones and turn his delicious lips to hers and kiss her, finally. For real. The sun burned in the east with this hope as she bought a large black coffee and sipped it, the caffeine seeming to fuel this dream further. Today would be the day that he'd be as excited to see her as she was to see him.

But her body knew that the hope was futile, her steps getting heavier as she approached his house and sometimes he wasn't even awake when she showed up, but Joey always was. He'd laugh at her quietly, secretly, because he could read her desire for Craig in every clue she was putting out there. Her body language, her tone of voice, the look in her eyes. Joey knew, despite Craig being oblivious.

But Craig was smart, and observant. She knew this. She knew former abused children were nothing if not observant. He was playing dumb, sometimes she was convinced of this.

When she came over and he wasn't awake Joey never left her hanging. 'I'll wake him up,' he'd say sometimes, and she'd wait in the living room with her coffee, sipping, sipping. But the best times were when Joey would give her permission to wake him up. Maybe he was rushing out the door with Angela or heading out to meet Caitlin or late for work. And then she'd go up the stairs, the dark hallway enveloping her into its secret heart. Three little bedrooms tucked under the eaves of the house. She'd creep toward his, push on the door and watch him sleep. The deep breathing, the lightly closed eyes, his hand laying across his chest. He always slept in flannel pajama pants and usually a soft old T-shirt but sometimes he didn't wear a shirt to bed. Then she could see his smooth pale chest and stomach, the breathing almost imperceptible.

And she'd try to be quiet and wonder how long she'd let him sleep, wonder if he was dreaming, maybe of Ashley. Then she'd say his name, that was all it took usually. Her normal speaking voice, 'Craig,' and he'd stir, moan, roll over and curl away from her, pull the covers tighter around himself. She'd say his name again and touch his shoulder, 'Craig,' And he'd sit up and blink at her, then look beyond her to the numbers on the digital clock.

Still, she'd fight with him some days. Sometimes it was him, liking her attention but wanting to be left alone, and he'd snap at her. Sometimes it was her, the razor tongue unleashed. Despite wanting to devour him she'd belittle him and make him feel stupid because that was how she felt, and she just had to turn it back on him sometimes.


End file.
